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[Freak]

So I've been working on this game for awhile now, I'm hoping I can eventually make commercial games, in order to do that I figured I'd better get the opinions of a bunch of random people.

So I figured I'd bug you guys about it since I trust your opinions.

The game itself is a pretty generic bullet hell shooter, hence the name. I wanted to ask about what sort of features you would want.

here's a screenshot and a crappy video of the incomplete first level so you know what I'm talking about.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YzhHj7kHaQ

No gameplay demo for now since there's still some pacing issues and bugs to work out.

Here's a list of the stuff I want to know the most, although opinions on stuff I didn't think of are welcome.

• How many levels would you want?
• Keep the health bar or make it one hit one kill? (there will be a lives system either way)
• How long should the levels be?
• How hard should it be?
• Are the graphics alright?

[dorf]

• How many levels would you want?
• Keep the health bar or make it one hit one kill? (there will be a lives system either way)
• How long should the levels be?
• How hard should it be?
• Are the graphics alright?

Level-wise you should probably take a look at similar games (Tyrian comes to mind) and make a single, smaller campaign. A few ordinary levels, with one mini boss in the middle and one badass boss at the end.

I didn't even see the health bar when I was watching the video! So, you'll have to do something about that. Make it more noticeable. The unorthodox window size and a lot happening on the screen might have something to do with this as well.
How about putting the health indicator on the actual ship? Doesn't need to be a bar, but something that tells the player whether the ship is in spotless/good/bad/near-death state.
One hit, one kill seems like the game will be over too soon. Unless you're going for an unforgiving shooter experience, keep the health bar.

The level demonstrated on the video seemed appropriately long to me. I probably wouldn't go shorter, though. Unless you have a level containing only the boss, or some other special level.

Just right! You should make it challenging, but fun. As the game goes on, make it harder. Players will die and that's fine. Just make sure they won't get too frustrated with the game early on.

The graphics are quite alright actually. Did you make them yourself?
The big ships don't have to be so detailed. The player won't have time to admire the enemy ship in its entirety. Make the background or ships brighter. It might just be my monitor, but the bad contrast makes my eyes tired.
What bothers me is the amount of flashing projectiles floating in space. Maybe tone down the flashing a bit (lot)?
I think I saw some stuttering while playing? That would need to be fixed eventually. Although, I wonder whether you will be able to achieve that in GameMaker.

There are some commercial games out there that were made with GM, but you'll notice that all of them look and feel similar. GM is designed to be easy and abstract so you can make many different games. But this also means you can't really make the game EXACTLY as you want.
At least that was the case 10 years ago. I'm not sure how they fare today customization-wise, but I image learning a programming language will get you a lot further in the gamedev industry...
Or just hire some folk to make you game!

[Freak]

Level-wise you should probably take a look at similar games (Tyrian comes to mind) and make a single, smaller campaign. A few ordinary levels, with one mini boss in the middle and one badass boss at the end.

So about eighteen levels divided into three six level acts? Maybe throw a mega boss at the end of each act to round it out.

I didn't even see the health bar when I was watching the video! So, you'll have to do something about that. Make it more noticeable. The unorthodox window size and a lot happening on the screen might have something to do with this as well.
How about putting the health indicator on the actual ship? Doesn't need to be a bar, but something that tells the player whether the ship is in spotless/good/bad/near-death state.
One hit, one kill seems like the game will be over too soon. Unless you're going for an unforgiving shooter experience, keep the health bar.

The current gui is very much a placeholder, I'll be fancying it up later. The window shape is intended to imitate arcade style screens, the downside to that though is that it doesn't play nice with fullscreen mode.

Just right! You should make it challenging, but fun. As the game goes on, make it harder. Players will die and that's fine. Just make sure they won't get too frustrated with the game early on.

Well bullet hell games aren't known for being merciful, so this game is probably going to lean toward the difficult side of the scale. I will of course be tweaking it once I start getting player feedback though.

The level demonstrated on the video seemed appropriately long to me. I probably wouldn't go shorter, though. Unless you have a level containing only the boss, or some other special level.

I was asking because I thought it might be to short, I think I'll go ahead and make it a bit longer, I like your idea about mid-level mini-bosses so I think I'll work out how to include those.

The graphics are quite alright actually. Did you make them yourself?

Actually I did do them myself, thank you.

The big ships don't have to be so detailed. The player won't have time to admire the enemy ship in its entirety.

Actually the big ships are very easy to make due to the way I set it up, each boss, and I suppose mini-bosses will work this way too, is made up of multiple objects that move in a synchronized manner. These individual parts all have their own stats and attack patterns, making a boss is as simple as slapping these parts together to get interesting results.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I'll be adding more parts to use as I work on the game, especially since the later bosses will be much larger and more complex.

Make the background or ships brighter. It might just be my monitor, but the bad contrast makes my eyes tired.

Done.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

What bothers me is the amount of flashing projectiles floating in space. Maybe tone down the flashing a bit (lot)?

The flashing is no more.

I think I saw some stuttering while playing? That would need to be fixed eventually. Although, I wonder whether you will be able to achieve that in GameMaker.

The stuttering was from the recorder, even when I was recording the game ran fine with no stuttering.

There are some commercial games out there that were made with GM, but you'll notice that all of them look and feel similar. GM is designed to be easy and abstract so you can make many different games. But this also means you can't really make the game EXACTLY as you want.
At least that was the case 10 years ago. I'm not sure how they fare today customization-wise, but I image learning a programming language will get you a lot further in the gamedev industry...

It's changed quite a bit, Game Maker Studio was actually built with commercial game development in mind instead of the hobbyist mindset. It got rid of just about all the pre-programmed stuff in favor of letting you set everything up how you want it to be. The only real limitation is that it is very much a 2d sprite orientated engine. That doesn't bother me very much though since that's what I wanted to make in the first place.

Or just hire some folk to make you game!

Yeah, I wish I had that kind of money.

Edit: I just realized that I've redrawn the player sprite four times, I'll hold onto the other sprites since I might find a use for them.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Parsely]

PTW

[UXLZ]

I hope that stutter is youtube or the video capturing software's fault. Lag is NOT good in a bullet hell. xD

Anyway, on a more serious note: (Although the above is quite serious. Bullet hells need a stable 60 FPS minimum always. Unless you're running it on a potato, if it drops below 60 at any point in time ever, something is seriously wrong.) Let's get started.

I'd like to point out firstly though that pretty much all of these are personal opinion. There's probably going to be a bunch of differing ideas for all of these points (well, for the entire game, really.)
Also, note that I have basically no experience with bullet hells specifically.

How many levels would you want?

It mostly depends on the length of the levels. If they're two-minute blitzes (doesn't look that way from video) then you'd want quite a lot of them. If they're 20 minute tests of endurance, unless you've got some seriously fun game play (most) people will probably get bored if you have too many. The most important thing isn't really the number of levels, it's the pacing of the game. Five two minute levels is terrible, but so is fifty three hour ones. Personally I'd probably say about 30 if they're short and 10 if they're long. This is going to vary a lot though for individuals. (This isn't taking into account spacing them out into acts or anything like that. From a pure numbers standpoint. All the levels shouldn't be exactly the same length anyway.) 

Keep the health bar or make it one hit one kill? (there will be a lives system either way)

Well, it depends on how you want the game to be. 'Forgiving' or Ruthless? 1HKO = Less Forgiving, Health Bar = More Forgiving. Overall having a health bar will probably make the game easier to learn since you'll have a few chances at dodging an attack pattern rather than one. I'd suggest keeping it the way it is but adding an optional 'Hard' difficulty where it's 1HKO. Can't hurt.

How long should the levels be?

As long as they need to be. In all seriousness, that's pretty much it. The game seems to have no story line so that's not an issue, just don't make the levels overstay their welcome or end too soon and it should be fine.

How hard should it be?

It's a bullet hell. Even the easy ones are hard. Difficulty doesn't matter, but it has to be FAIR. The player should never feel that they died because the game screwed them over (like a literally impossible to dodge attack for instance).

Are the graphics alright?

They're... Functional. Not very 'pretty' but they're clean and that's more important for a bullet hell than eye candy. The most important thing is that the bullets are easy to see. I think what I dislike the most is that grid in the background, though that may just be because you're in dev mode or something. More important than graphics is aesthetic, anyway.

Sorry if I rambled a bit, but I'm mainly just trying to emphasize the point that the game has to be fair. As long as it's fair and the mechanics aren't boring, it should be fine.
On that note, you should probably try and think of something to spice the game up a bit. Different attacks, power ups (not the biggest fan of those but some people love them), have some sort of interesting mechanic that adds a lot to the game. Add more interactivity if possible. It may be a bullet hell, but unless you have super awesome bullet patterns (like mazes and stuff) there'll have to be something to do other than just dodge bullets. I barely even noticed the player ship attacking, it may as well just be about trying to dodge the bullets as long as possible if there's nothing else to do. (You don't have to try and hit a certain part of the enemy ship, etc.)

Edit: Scratch that. It looks like I was wrong. Watching the video again, it seems like parts of the enemy ship get blown up as you damage them.
More variety in player attacks and the like would still be good though.

[Freak]

So mid stage mini-bosses are a thing now.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Not very tough, maybe I should swap out it's tri-shot for a turret gun.

Oh and I've added a way to powerup your gun.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The position of the bullets is still a little wonky and needs tweaking, but hey more firepower.
Currently the way I have it set up your gun starts at level one and can increase eight times, once for each powerup you grab. I'm thinking about making your gun go down a level each time you get hit, that way players won't be inclined to try to tank shots and actually want to dodge.

I should probably add a display that shows your current weapon level, maybe something above the healthbar.

Anybody have any other powerup ideas?

[flame99]

This seem interesting.

For powerups, some sort of health pickup? Maybe have something like Binding of Isaac's soul hearts, where they increase your max health, but can't be healed once you lose them? Call them shields, perhaps?

[Freak]

Just buffed the crap out of the miniboss, and made it look better too.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

yarg I am teh prettys now

I'm almost ready to release a demo and start work on the next level. either that or I'll get bored and work on something else for awhile, I do kind of have a short attention span.